


The Bright-haired Nymph and the Lady of the Purple Blossoms

by Dragonkeeper14



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 12:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30021507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonkeeper14/pseuds/Dragonkeeper14
Summary: Fiction becomes story; story becomes legend; and legend becomes myth. Here, we consider a subplot of 'Anne of Avonlea', in the midst of this transition…





	The Bright-haired Nymph and the Lady of the Purple Blossoms

'Haven’t you come to a place so beautiful, it makes you feel as if someone were there with you? As if the whole place seemed somehow to be alive and thinking? I know I have. Many people have, and to that feeling, they give names. It becomes a local god, or lesser immortal of some sort. Stories are told of such things laughing and dancing in the meadows and riverbanks and natural clearings and such places, wild but hospitable; and some of these figures, are called nymphs or fairies or veela or dryads or apsaras or any number of other such names. 

Legend has it, on that island lived a small bevy of nymphs, who laughed and danced and made merry in every pleasant place, up and down the isle. Their leader was a bright-haired young thing who feared no evil and made friends with all good people. For a hundred years she was at feud with a certain imp or satyr (that’s the male form of their species), who once made a joke of her in public; but in the end, he saved her from the river-god, and she forgave him, and married him, and lived happily ever after.

Just as the springs and meadows had their nymphs, the river had its guardian; and he saw the nymphs playing and grew tired of their noise. So, when their bright-haired leader went down his river on a boat one evening, he seized the boat in his watery hands and rushed her down-stream, where the sea might take her and carry her off to the horizon. 

But along came the satyr of whom I spoke, the little demi-god of those parts, and he caught the boat as it passed and drew the fairy ashore. She asked, of course, “Why did you save me? I have never been kind to you”, and he answered: “Once, I lost your kindness; now, I must spend all my life to be worthy of it”. After that, they were fast friends; and years later, they were wedded. 

Since those days, many a pilgrim has visited that island, to see where the nymphs played, and the elf rescued their chieftess, and where she herself brought a long-lost and sorrowing knight to the house where his lady still lay waiting for him. 

This knight, Sir Stefan Erbin, was engaged to marry a certain Lady of the Purple Blossoms; but the forces of Evil were ware of it, and said among themselves, "This must not be, for then we shall never rule this island". So they put one of their own people at Sir Stephan's side, and he said the Lady was untrue to him. So Sir Stephan turned his back and went off with a moss-woman; who rose out of the earth, stayed to give him a summer of love, and a son to remember her by, and sank back again. After that, Sir Stephan put his son in the care of the nymphs, and went away on adventures of his own. The son grew up to be an explorer and a poet. With the help of the Heavenly Twins (who come into many stories), this boy travelled through fairylands unnumbered, and brought tales of them back to our world, and so renewed the old coming and going between the two dimensions. Meanwhile, his former lady wrapped her house in a mist, so none could find her, except by chance, or destiny (which might be the same thing), with only one faithful servant.

There she stayed, quite alone, until one misty day when our bright-haired nymph, and her own trusty sidekick, became lost in the fog. 

Then said the sidekick (the Ebony Maiden, we might call her), “Fate and fortune are against us, for we have lost our way. Now we’ll have to go back”. But our heroine answered, “Perhaps we’ll find some new adventure, if we go on”.

So on they went, and found their way to a secret clearing, where stood an ancient castle. In they went, and found no-one there but the Lady of the Purple Blossoms and her faithful servant, in the very centre of the edifice. What was the servant’s name? Charlotte. The Lady of the Purple Blossoms called all her ladies-in-waiting by that name, because they were sisters and all looked alike. The story doesn’t tell their other names.

In our nymphs went, as I said, and there were Lady Blossom and Charlotte the Fourth, and laid a table for them and gave them beds for the night, and no-one was ever better lodged than they. When the mist faded the next morning, they returned to their own part of the island; but every time the mist thickened again, down they went to Lady Blossom’s castle, and told jokes and sang songs and related old stories together, until the sunrise showed them the way home. So they became great friends, all four. 

About the same time, Sir Stephan returned, to collect his son from the nymphs and begin the boy's training in the manly arts of the day. Then came the bright-haired nymph to him and said, "I have spoken with your lady, and found her true to you all these years", and showed him certain proof of the plot against him, which the Lady herself kept all those years, waiting for his return. Then Sir Stephan begged Lady Blossom's forgiveness, and they were re-united at the altar, the next summer. Then the power of Evil on that isle was broken, and the Dark Order did not return to those parts for a hundred years or more'.

**Author's Note:**

> Any questions? Opinions? Suggestions? Criticism? Let me know!
> 
> Certain of my readers (if I had any) have asked, Who is narrating, and when? The answer is, It's one tourist to another, some thousand-odd years after the lifetime of Montgomery's characters.


End file.
